


It Comes in Waves, I Close My Eyes

by The_Otter_Knight



Series: God Percy, Child of Prophecy Nico AU [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Canon, Chosen One Nico, Falling In Love, God Percy, Implied Luke/Annabeth, Loss of Immortality, M/M, No Dialogue, Non Canonical Immortal, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 23:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9352037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Otter_Knight/pseuds/The_Otter_Knight
Summary: Nico is the son of death and Percy is all but a god with eternal life. It shouldn't work out. It can't.But Nico always wants what he can't have.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Bring Me The Horizon's Drown.
> 
> This is a direct sequel to [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6540199) and would probably make sense if you read that first but you might be able to read this by itself? I tried my best to make it a standalone.
> 
> Let me know if this doesn't make sense; as a fanfiction writer, I have a clear idea in my head what's happening but it might not make sense because of the limit of what I can output. I hope you enjoy it, anyways.

Nico hates Perseus - hates the way he feels beneath his hands.

Nico can feel the shift of atoms and stardust, ocean debris and clutter that make up his skin. The endless streams that pulse in his blood, how easily he melds into the water as if it's his flesh and blood - it is, it is, the ocean is his home - and the cords of immortality that tighten around his throat. He is hyperaware of it each moment he touches him when he doesn't bear cursed shackles.

Percy has seen decades roam past and will see decades more - the fall of Troy and the destruction of Kronos the second time around when Nico finally gets around to it. Nico can see seconds and hours and years blink in his blue eyes like burning supernovas. His limbs could become sinewy and he could unravel with wounds but all that would pour is coppery liquid of infinity and something akin to undeath.

The atmosphere burns in Percy’s lungs - Nico can feel it with each exhale - and he can feel the shift of the world each time that the gods interfere, the sense of off-kilter balance and wrongness that comes with gods interfering. But Percy persists, denies his birthright, denies his immortality. He helps as much as he can even when he doesn't have to.

Nico is the son of death and Percy is all but a god with eternal life. It shouldn't work out. It can't.

But Nico always wants what he can't have.

Nico thinks it is out of loyalty from freeing the young god from Kronos on the Princess Andromeda that Percy remains and yet when the immortal looks at him like that, his breath catches in his throat and he wonders if it is true at all. Loyalty, seafaring and storms are all of Percy’s trademarks and yet he is gone from the worlds scriptures, nothing more than a forgotten shadow. They both have that in common - not wholly being there but just enough to be recognisable when they're needed.

Despite everything, Percy dislikes the other gods - dislikes the terms of pawns and turns his eyes upon their flaws. Nico can feel the anger of the storm in Percy's eyes, knows that it is never directed at him. Nico wonders why Percy still fights against the older gods, why his loyalty falters when it comes to them.

But the fact remains that Percy is born of loyalty above all else - everything else comes second behind it. It doesn't matter about debts and seeing things through, it is about worth and trust. Both of which most of the older deities falter in - because with long life comes a long memory, of grudges that don't settle and of scorned lovers who still repent decades later. Deceit and backstabbing is high among those of immortal blood because they don't feel the need to forgive. They don't worry about who they swear their loyalty to, about who they pledge their lives to because they can easily change their mind. They don't care about the “forever” about their decisions because for them “forever” is only a abstract concept. They only concern themselves with allegiances when it can benefit themselves whereas mortals help without consideration.

It is the exact same reason that Zeus favours mortals over his wife - their knowledge of short lives and how endlessly they love, of their well-placed trust and loyalty that they would die by. Because gods can turn their backs on mortals but never the other way around.

Percy can only help so much with the quests after Kronos’s fall aside from the rule of no gods interfering with a demigod. He is weak without the prayers and worship from red-blooded mortals like Nico and yet he is still strong enough to make the ocean roar. He does not tremble, does not waver, and remains by Nico’s side despite everything. Always sends a teasing remark after each offering but knows enough when he has gone too far. But Nico knows what rocks do in the ocean, so he remains as far away as he can, only asking for help when he has to but Percy is never truly far away, even if it seems like it.

Nico also knows what he is and what he is not.

He is a blink in the eye of Percy’s life, just another stone skipping across the surface. He is death incarnate with an icy grip and swords of shade and dust and bone. He is growing up, frail in a god’s grip and short in years but he is alive with a beating heart and breath in his lungs. For all the death that lingers in his eyes, he still fights for life.

His blood is red and he is mortal. That is what he explains to the young god and that is all Percy needs to understand. He is not as stubborn as Ares is, but his eyebrows curl and his mouth folds and he resists. There is no debt to be owed - he helped Annabeth find Nico at the Roman camp when he believed himself to be the son of Pluto. He has helped in other ways and yet he believes he must do more. Nico does not deserve Percy’s loyalty, does not deserve Percy’s lingering companionship throughout the years.

Nico knows what it means to love an immortal. Knows the creak of their ethereal bones, the whisper of devotion that only lasts long enough until the next mortal, the flash of their power in their eyes, the destruction and the wrath. He knows that his body will wither and decay and become deformed until he is nothing but rot. That their time is endless and his is not.

Nico is selfish and cannot allow for Percy to remain any longer than he is already doing - that others need him more. He sees the way he lingers, feels the returning ache in his ribs and he resists. He cannot love Percy, wishes not to, because for each time that awe-inspiring devotion is directed towards him, he sees the flaws of it. Loyalty cannot come without a price.

He knows this when Percy sheds his tail and holds the world for him when he has to. He knows this because he saw that split second of uncertainty in Percy’s eyes when Nico rejected godhood for Luke to be alive, for Annabeth to be happy. But then the unwavering faithfulness comes faster, stronger, as if Percy was awed by Nico’s selflessness when in fact all the demigod of death wanted is for nobody else to experience that brief flash of insanity when he almost lost Bianca.

With Jason, Reyna, and Will, he begins to feel more welcomed. Their duties separate them, even though he still fights, even though he must watch Piper and Jason slip into Tartarus, even when Percy shies away and tries to find other ways of helping. Gaea makes a fool out of both of them and spills Percy’s blood, who is always so eager to protect his demigod friends but brought them down at the last second.

It runs like rivets of gold and the apology is strong in Percy’s eyes. They barely make it out alive and no one is truly the same - mutilated or dead or barely breathing. Nico tries to save them all, tries to push the shadow of death away.

Even after, Nico is aware of the gap between mortal and immortality, of the fact that the rule of death does not apply to gods - that they can cheat it and live free of it, even though the doubt still applies. He is aware of where Percy and he begin, where their threads of fates co-reside - not quite touching but running side by side. The feeling of eternity that runs like weak electricity beneath Nico’s fingertips every time he touches Percy makes sure that Nico is well aware of the fact that they are different.

Nico knows he does not deserve Percy’s faith in him, even after, when all he's done is use Percy’s status as a god for the quests - maybe because the other has known, all along, that it wasn't just for him. That Nico is worth something more than the title of Chosen One, that he is worth more than what the other immortals decided he is worthy of. That despite all the grudges and the lies and the deceit, he knows who his true friends are. Because somewhere along the way, Percy realised that the one who needs a friend loyal to him is Nico himself.

Nico knows that Percy is selfless; it's evident by the way he refuses the shrine decicated to him, refuses the looks that Jason gives him, refuses the help of both Roman and Greek camp even though his bloodline marks him as both. The younger gods - those who were closer to mortality by age - choose to help the others, to help the demigods who gave their lives to the wars, to the camps that fought for and with them - because unlike the older gods, they knew what mortality could be like.

Nico also knows what refusing it all means. It means the death of a god - but the beginning of a mortal if everything went right, even though Zeus threatens those who wavered in loyalty to the gods must sacrifice their longevity, even though it has always been a choice for Percy.

Nico finally lets Percy stay because he is selfish, because he wants what he cannot have even though he tries. Percy stays because a life is made sweeter when spent with someone you love, because even gods can love like mortals can. Because for once, they weren't someone else's second choice, but rather each other firsts.


End file.
